This Week in Texas Methodist History July 10 Malakoff Methodist Church Receives Memorial Gifts in Honor of Deceased Pastor, July 15, 1943 Sometimes historical research becomes personal. While looking through back issues of the Southestern Christian Advocate for topics for this blog I found some family history of which I was unaware. The Advocate of July 15, 1943 contains a letter from my father, John Wesley Hardt, announcing two gifts from family members in honor of my grandfather Wesley William Hardt who had died the previous Good Friday. Wesley’s brothers and sister donated a pulpit Bible and other relatives donated a bapitismal bow. Three of Wesley’s brothers were also preachers/ Dan, Louis, and Charles served in the West Texas (today Rio Texas) Conference. Two of the brothers, Henry and Ben, were chemistry professors. One brother, Anton, managed the ranch. The only sister, Alice, was a missionary to Mexico, having taught at both Holding Insittute, Lydia Patterson Institute, and MECS school in northern Mexico. The Hardt children were raised in Medina County near the town of Yancey, although they also had ancestral ties to another Medina County church, New Fountain, founded by (among others) their grandparents. The Hardt children received very good educations, mainly at Southwestern University. The oldest, Dan, entered the German Mission Conference in 1918, the last year of that conferences’s existence. Louis, the next oldest, entered the West Texas Conference. By the time Wesley was old enough, he (in consultation with his financee, Ida Wilson) decided that three brothers in one conference would be too much so he took an appointment in the North Texas Conference, the Bogata Circuit. After one year, he transferred to the Texas Conference. As a young man, he served mainly six and five point circuits of sawmill towns, but as he gained experience, he got better appoiontments—only two or three tpoint circuits). They included Tomball (with Spring and Magnolia), Anahuac (with Wallisville), Woodville (with Doucette and Colmesneil). He even served two stations Arp and East Bernard, that did not have multiple churches on a circuit. His appointment to Malakoff in November 1942 never should have happened. While serving in Anahuac, he had been diagnosed with carcinoma of the parotid gland. In spite of devastating radiation treaments, and disfiguring surgeries, one of which severed the facial nerve, the cancer had spreac. He came to Malakoff in December 1942, made it through Christmas and went to bed. He knew he was dying but was deperate to try to secure the maximum pension for his widow, and pensions were calculated on years of service, and he had only 21 years. When he died, Bishop A. Frank Smith appointed his son, my father, John Wesley Hardt who was a 21 year old seminary student. Although my father had already served two appointments (DeKalb Circuit and Alba Circuit) at that young age, this was an extraordinary appointment. Malakoff was considered a good church, and the town was fairly prosperous thaks to the lignite mine that supplied fuel to a Texas Light and Power plant in Trinidad. The appointment was made possible only because of the large number of ministers who had entered the milary chaplaincy. Chaplains in World War II had to be at least 24 years old so John Wesley could serve a local church instead of entering the military chaplaincy. Bishop Smith’s appointment had the added benefit of allowing Wesley’s widow and her two daughters to remain in the parsonage. Malakoff also happened to be my mother’s home town, so after the couple married in September 1943, they could stay with her parents. I do no know what happened to the pulpit Bible Wesley’s siblings donated. Perhaps it is still there. When I was conference archist and received a pulpit Bible from a closed church, I tried to determine if it had been presented as a memorial. If so, I tried to return it to the family.